​​﻿D: How do we communicate with our Inner Master? Some of us still have feelings of loneliness and emptiness. Is it because we have not achieved a deep communion with our own Inner Master, who is always our best friend?

SM: No, we do, we do. But sometimes, the world overwhelms us with its activities, attractions and some negativity, that it makes us feel as if we are not connected with out inner Self.

And that's why we have to meditate every day to strengthen this knowledge of connectedness. And it doesn't happen overnight. To some people, it takes years long of practice.

And the irony is this - the more people we know, the lonelier we feel.

​If we were to live somewhere alone, after a while, we won't feel as lonely. But we have to live in the city or within the environment of a lot of people of a big population, and we know many people.

And sometimes people make us feel disappointed, and feeling sad or heart broken. And these events do really make us feel lonely.

Otherwise, within ourselves, if we concentrate more on ourselves, on what we are doing at every moment of our life then we would not feel as lonely.

​Just because we expect things from other people, and people let us down, or sometimes people break our hearts and that's how we end up feeling lonely.

This is just the emotional level. Do not confuse the emotional state of feeling with the spiritual level of practice, all right?

But nevertheless, the higher you go, the less lonely you feel.

But only if you can let go of the expectation of other people. Otherwise, you will always feel lonely.​

If you look upon other people, and look around at other people, instead of trying to be independent, be within yourself, then you would be lonely.

​So try to be yourself, try to be within yourself, try to concentrate within, try to be independent of other people's help or judgment or expectation, or your own expectation of other people. Then you don't feel lonely at all.​Sometimes, we know a lot of people, a lot of friends, and they make us feel very lonely. It's very ironic, but it is like that.

D: That's why so many people want to go and live in a cave and be a monk, so they're no longer lonely, right?

SM: Yeah, yeah. But then the habit brings you back into the city, and then we continue to rely on other people for our happiness and for our company and then that is a wrong notion, but it's just a habit. Don't worry, okay?

It's just a habit of the mind that we are in the company of other people all the time and we cannot be alone. So you have to take it - take the price of having company, take the price of friendship, the price, yeah.

In this world, anything, apart from physical things, anything material, even something non-material, such as friendship and personal affection between human beings do sometimes bring the adverse effect like loneliness, disappointment, unhappiness.

This is the price we have to pay for having the company of others and opinions of others, etc...

So you take it both sides, or else you don't have any friends, or you don't have any people around you. If you can bear that, it's fine. If you cannot, then we know there is nothing yin without yang, okay?

--Excerpt from DVD 745 Contributing to This World VIDEO: https://youtu.be/oXNAsMi8tDo